


In the Deep Mid-Winter

by missmissa85



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Jaime/Brienne if you squint, Multiple Pov, Post 8x2, im calling it canon divergence because it wont be canon in 3 hours
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 11:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18637264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmissa85/pseuds/missmissa85
Summary: The battle ends so suddenly, and they are all unsure of what comes next.





	1. Bran/Jon

Theon lay dead at his feet. Jon was lost in the smoke. Daenerys was high above them, Drogon screaming beneath her as Viserion fell once more. He looked up and the disfigured face of the Night King looked down at him. His armor was burnt and his chest was bloody. Clearly, he was not immune to Valyrian steel. And Brandon Stark finally smiled. The Night King put his hand on the mark he had left what felt like a lifetime ago, and Bran plunged his hand into the Night King’s open wound; a wound Jon had clearly given him.

The scream pierced the air with more ferocity than a dragon’s roar. Bran’s ears bled as his fingers found the shard and pulled it from the monster’s chest. With a great effort, he pulled it from his foe’s chest and tossed it away. The Night King began to fade as a man fell to his knees before Bran.

A clatter of shaken bones reached him as if beneath the deep blue sea. He leaned forward and whispered, “I’m sorry,” before he let go of the memories of the world and of the world itself.

* * *

Jon was sure his heart had stopped when the Night King tossed him across the Godswood. He could barely breathe and the smoke made it even more difficult. But he staggered to his feet as Rhaegal burned a line of wights before landing and circling Jon protectively.

A Walker came for him and he met the spear with Valyrian steel as Rhaegal blasted another. Then a scream pierced the air. Even the Walker seemed to hear it. Though he felt his ears begin to bleed, he stabbed the Walker in the chest and he disintegrated along with the wights. And then a sudden silence followed by a clatter of falling bones that seemed to come from everywhere.

Jon thrust Longclaw into the ground and pulled himself to his feet as Rhaegal flapped his wings and joined his crying brother in the sky. He staggered toward the Weirwood tree where he had last seen Bran and Theon. He saw Theon’s dead body, blood staining the snow around it. Then he spied Bran’s empty chair; his brother’s body crumpled in the snow. And a man in the Night King’s armor knelt over him, stroking Bran’s hair.

“Stay away from him!” Jon yelled, his ribs straining from the effort.

“He relieved me of one burden and gave me another. A perfect sort of vengeance I suppose,” the man said in an accent Jon didn’t recognize.

“Who are you?” Jon asked, his hold on Longclaw tightening.

The man looked up and Jon gasped. He had seen that look from his brother’s eyes every day since he had been back at Winterfell.

“I’m the Three Eyed Raven now,” the man said, standing to his feet. “Who I was doesn’t matter.”

Jon slowly lowered his sword. “And Bran?”

“It’s up to him now. I do not see the future; only what is now, and what is past.” The Raven took another step toward him. “Whatever you choose-Jon Snow or Aegon Targaryen-I wish you good fortune in the wars to come.”

The man walked away, shedding his armor as he went. Drogon landed in front of him and snarled and he merely paused and looked to the dragon’s rider.

“Who are you?” Daenerys demanded.

“I’m the Three Eyed Raven, Your Grace,” he answered politely.

“No, you’re not! Where’s Brandon Stark?” she replied angrily.

“He’s here, Dany,” Jon called out to her. “Let him go.”

Jon saw the Raven quietly say something to Daenerys after she dismounted. He didn’t much care what was said as he leaned down to listen for Bran’s breath. A guttural sob escaped his throat when he felt his brother’s breath against his face. He pressed a kiss to Bran’s forehead as Daenerys knelt in the snow next to Theon’s body.

“Is Bran alive?” she asked, a measured coolness to her tone.

“Yes,” he answered.“I don’t know if he’ll ever wake, though.”

“I should write to his sister,” Daenerys said, closing Theon’s unblinking eyes.“Or…maybe you should?”

He was surprised at the genuine uncertainty in her voice.“Sansa,” he answered. “If she still lives.”

He could feel Daenerys’s eyes on him.Her hand stretched toward him, but he knew he couldn’t bear her touch, not when all common ground between them shifted more than the snows.“You should see to your people, Your Grace,” he said, not turning her direction as he gently pulled his brother’s head into his lap.

Her hand snapped away from him as though she had been burned.She stood from the bloody snow and mounted Drogon’s back.

Jon turned to see Rhaegal had landed near them and he was staring at him intently.“Go on,” Jon told him quietly.“Go with your mother.”

Rhaegal huffed and shook his head.

“Go on!” Jon repeated, loudly.“Go find survivors.Please?”

Rhaegal huffed again, but spread his wings and leapt into the sky.Jon turned his attention back to Bran.He brushed the hair from his brother’s forehead and said, “You need to wake up now, little brother.You need to come back to us.You’ve been gone too long.Wake up!”

“Jon?”

Sansa’s voice came to him as if from far away.

“Jon!” she repeated.

He turned to see her running across the godswood toward him.Madly he thought that his sister didn’t even possess the skill to run, and he almost smiled for it.And then he remembered Theon’s body.

“Sansa, wait-”

But he was too late.She stopped short and covered her mouth at the sight of the bloodied body.Sobs wracked her body and a stream of tearful protests fell from her lips as she knelt next to what remained of Theon Greyjoy.

Jon let her cry.He had only seen her cry once since they had been reunited.They had had many days that would have broken lesser men, and Sansa had never wavered.He would let her have her fill of tears.

He did not know how much time passed before she turned on her knees in the muck and snow and wrapped her arms around Jon’s neck.He pulled her close with his free arm.He didn’t know how long Sansa cried her last tears onto his shoulder until she said, “Bran?”

“He’s breathing,” Jon replied.“I don’t know if he’ll ever be alive, though.” 

She nodded almost imperceptibly and her eyes drifted back to Theon.“I’ll write his sister.He should be buried at sea.”

“We could bury him here,” Jon said quietly.“He was a Stark too.”

Sansa took in a long, shaking breath and sat up just enough to look her brother in the face.“Jon, Walkers got into the crypts.”

Frozen fingers seemed to wrap around Jon’s heart.

“They raised the dead, and there was chaos.Arya went below to get people out and to fight them.”

“No,” Jon whispered, begging Sansa to stop.

“Tyrion made it out.He told me a wall collapsed.Arya was behind it.”

He thought his heart might burst from the pain.His scream came from so deep within he was not even sure he had made the sound.The pain of losing Arya once was bad enough.This was infinitely worse.This time, Sansa held him as he cried.


	2. Arya/Gendry

Arya Stark gasped for breath as she pushed her way out of a pile of bones.She clambered to her feet and felt around for anything solid as her eyes adjusted to the near-darkness.She felt broken stones beneath her finger-tips and then she remembered.She had been fighting them, covering the escape of the women and children.Tossing one of the fuckers into the weakened wall had been her own maddened idea, and now she was trapped with a lot of corpses.

Having determined her location, she took stock of herself. The wound on her forehead had stopped bleeding. A knot had formed on the back of her skull, which probably explained why she didn’t remember the last moments before the dead...stopped. Her ribs on her right side were likely cracked as she had pains with every breath. Her Valyrian steel dagger was in one hand, the tip of the spear Gendry had made her was in the other. It glinted in the dim light and Arya thought her chilled heart might shatter.

 

_“If I hadn’t been here, would it have been someone else?”_

_She turns to see him, clothed save for his cloak. There was something in his eyes she hadn’t seen for a very long time. He was angry. She wanted to scoff. Ours is the Fury, indeed._

_“If you hadn’t been here, it would have been no one,” she replied, lacing her jerkin._

_His features softened. “Do you mean that?”_

_“Don’t,” Arya cautioned him._

_“What?”_

_“Don’t let this be more than it was,” she said coldly, looking into his eyes.“Death is coming today.Hope is for fools and little children, and that’s neither of us now.We have to go.”_

 

Those were the last words she had spoken to Gendry before she took her spear and went to the battlements.She had only seen him once afterward as he ran to hold the line outside the walls with a great fucking warhammer in his hands.She didn’t dwell on the danger he was in when she ran to the crypts to get Sansa out.She didn’t think about him when she ran for her life away from the corpses of her ancestors after having set Rickon on fire.There was only a flash of his blue eyes as a stones began to fall and then she knew nothing.

“You better not be dead,” she muttered to the darkness before tucking the spearhead into her boot and reaching down to the ground and groping in the darkness until her fingers found Needle’s hilt.She sheathed her sword and stepped across the remains of the living and the dead until she found the torch giving off the meager light in the tunnel.It got brighter as she held it up.The entrance she had always known was closed to her, so she would have to go back.However the White Walkers had gotten in would be her way out.

* * *

 

Something slashed at his leg and he lost his balance, his Warhammer falling uselessly from his grasp.They were all tearing at him and he knew this was how his story would end.He closed his eyes and saw a pair of gray ones staring down at him.He silently prayed to whatever god was listening that she would live.

A catastrophicscream pierced the air, and Gendry instinctively covered his ears.A fraction of a moment later, he realized he was only able to cover his ears because none of the skeletons were clawing at him.They were shaking as if they were in pain.And then the scream stopped, and so did the dead.They fell all around him and the air was silent save for the distant cry of a great dragon.

He didn’t know how long he laid there, unsure if it was even safe to move.But then he began to hear the distant shouts of the living, and he groaned as he pushed the bodies away from himself and stood to his feet.His leg pained him with every movement and he had to use his warhammer as a crutch to move across the field littered with bodies.It was still dark, only the torches strewn across the field and the fire in the trenches lighting any sort of path back to the castle.That was where he had last seen her.

“Gendry, lad?Is that you?”

“Davos?Davos, what are you doing out here?” Gendry asked, taking hold of the man’s outstretched hand, and lowering himself to his side.

“The walls were starting to crumble.Didn’t seem much use to stay behind it,” Davos replied, sputtering blood as he spoke.

Gendry looked up and saw that indeed a large portion of Winterfell’s north wall had crumbled.It was the same wall Arya had been standing atop when last he saw her.He hoped she hadn’t been standing atop it when it fell.She would have hated to die in such a fashion.

“Come on, old man,” Gendry said, stretching Davos’ arm across his shoulders and pulling the man up from the ground.

“Lad, you’d be best to leave me,” Davos protested, holding his side as Gendry none too gently set him on his feet.

“You’ve never left me,” Gendry replied, “I’m not going to treat you any different.”

He left his warhammer in the field and focused all his attention on staying upright through the pain in his leg and the weight across his shoulders.He hoped the fires would stay bright enough for him to find a way back into the castle and back to help.

“She wasn’t standing on it when it fell,” Davos said through labored breaths.

“What?” Gendry asked.“Who-who are you talking about?”

“You know very well who I mean,” Davos said, annoyance in his tired voice.“I saw you coming out of that store room after her with your laces still undone.”

Gendry grunted and tightened his hold on the other man.

“Do you know her somehow, or did she just very much like that spear you made her?”

Despite the pain in his body and the predicament of their situation, Gendry found himself laughing.“I suppose it was a little bit of both.She was with me when the Brotherhood sold me to the Red Woman.She wanted to me come with her to Winterfell and be a smith for her brother, Robb.I told her I couldn’t.And then Beric sold me off and I thought she died with her family at the Red Wedding.”

“Well, now I understand why you told Jon Snow exactly who you were when you met him,” Davos said, groaning at the effort of every step.“You were fulfilling a promise you should have made.”

“Aye, it was,” Gendry admitted.

“So, what was laying with her last night then?”

Gendry rolled his eyes.“Fuck if I know.And it was her bloody idea, by the way.”

“Gendry,” Davos said, holding the younger man back until he was looking at him.“She wasn’t on the wall.She went down to the crypts.”

Gendry’s brow furrowed in confusion.“Why would she do that?She wanted to be in the middle of the fight.”

“The Walkers got into the crypt and were raising the dead.She went down there to get people out.”

Gendry took a deep breath pulled them onward.“She survived,” he determined.“She always does.”


	3. Daenerys/Jaime

She almost didn’t see him until she heard the familiar coarse shout of, “Khaleesi!” from the ground.She landed near him and leapt from Drogon’s back as soon as she was able.Ser Jorah’s legs seemed to be trapped beneath his horse and he was cradling someone in his arms.When she came closer, she saw that it was Lyanna Mormont in her cousin’s arms; the girl’s face covered in blood from a gash in her head.

“Does Lady Mormont still live?” Daenerys asked as she stepped across bodies to reach them.

“Barely,” he replied.“You must take her back to the castle before it’s too late.”

“I’m not going to leave you here,” she insisted.

“You must,” Jorah told her.“This girl is my family’s only future.I will survive out here until you return.Save her.”

Jorah took his knife and cut away Lady Mormont’s armor before gently placing her in Daenerys’s arms.

“I _am_ coming back for you,” she informed him.

“I know you will, Khaleesi,” Jorah said, smiling.“Now, go, please.”

Even without her armor, the girl was almost too heavy.Daenerys grunted with effort as she placed the girl on Drogon’s back.As she mounted him herself, the first rays of the dawn hit her face, and she felt a faint flutter deep in her belly.Her breath caught in her throat.The sun was rising in the west.

* * *

 

Jaime Lannister emptied all the bile in his gut onto the cold, hard ground as the first rays of dawn appeared on the western horizon.She was not only dead, she had been torn nearly apart.Her bowels hung out and her head was almost disconnected from her body.Her sapphire eyes stared up at the stars unceasingly.

“No-no-no-no-no! Not you!Not you!Not you!You can’t go!”

Podrick was screaming and shaking her shoulders.Jaime took a deep breath and steeled himself.He wrapped his good arm around the young man’s shoulders and pulled him back.Podrick fell back on his haunches as he grasped Jaime’s arm.

“We can’t do anything for her now, Pod.”

“We should’v-we should’ve fought harder,” Podrick said, crying.

“We did as we were able,” Jaime whispered to him.“She was so proud of you.You know that, don’t you?”

The young man nodded through his tears.“We can’t leave her here,” he said, his voice choked.

“We’re not going to,” Jaime assured him, hugging him more tightly.“But I have only got the one hand, and you’re bleeding yourself.We need help, all right?”

Podrick nodded and sucked in a breath before standing to his feet.“Will you stay with her until I come back?”

“Of course I will,” Jaime said quietly.

Podrick ran toward a group of knights and Jaime sat down on the bloodied ground next to her.He reached over and tried to close her eyes, but her lids would not stay down.Jaime was surprised as the sobs that suddenly wracked his body.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, softly kissing her forehead.“I’m so sorry.It should have been me, Brienne.It should have been me.”


	4. Sansa/Gendry

Sansa was directing men and women where to put the bodies of the dead.She had had to devise a system as the fallen were brought into the remains of the courtyard.Not all the cultures present had the same funeral rites.Since there was no threat of enslaved resurrection, it didn’t seem proper to simply burn all of the bodies.The injured were being sent to the great hall and it was already overflowing.Her attention shifted between the main gate and entrance to the crypts.She looked to every face, hoping to see that of her sister.

She saw a girl with brown hair dressed in warrior’s garb and holding a bow.Her heart was in her throat as she ran toward the girl, calling her sister’s name.When the girl turned around, Sansa’s heart sank to her stomach when the girl turned to face her.

“I’m sorry, my lady, I’m not your sister.I’m—”

“Meera Reed,” Sansa finished for her, regaining her composure.“I remember.You brought Bran home.I thought you wanted to be with your family in The Neck when they came?”

“I did too,” Meera nodded.“But when it came to it…I knew what was coming.And I couldn’t abandon everyone.I couldn’t abandon him.”

Sansa nodded her understanding.“I understand.He saved us all, you know?He pulled a shard of dragon glass from the Night King’s chest and destroyed him somehow.”

Tears shone in Meera’s eyes.“Is he-Is he…?”

Sansa managed a tearful smile as she nodded.“He’s still breathing, yes, but he’s not awake.”

“Can I see him?” Meera asked, wiping tears from her cheeks.

“Of course you can.Jon put him in his room.Do you remember the way?”

“I’ll find it.Thank you, my lady,” Meera replied, slinging her bow across her back and running toward the keep.

Sansa brushed the tears away before they could fall on her cheeks.She almost didn’t notice the sound of a dragon landing just outside the gate.She did hear the unmistakable sound of Daenerys’s voice crying for help followed by the appearance of the silver-haired woman holding the body of someone else.

“It’s Lady Mormont!Please help!”

Sansa picked up her skirts and ran to where the silver-haired woman was carrying a black-clad body in her arms.Daenerys nearly lost her hold on Lyanna Mormont until Sansa placed her arms under hers.

“How did you find her?” Sansa asked.

“Her cousin charged me with her care,” Daenerys replied as Mormont men surrounded them.

They reverently took their lady from their arms and hurried to the great hall.Sansa looked to Daenerys and saw an ashen face and a sad expression.

“Are you well, Your Grace?” Sansa asked in measured tones.

“I don’t know,” she answered, a hand fluttering near her stomach.“The sun is rising in the west.”

“That is far from the strangest thing I’ve seen as of late, Your Grace.”

Daenerys finally met her eyes.“You don’t have to call me that anymore, Lady Stark.”

Sansa’s forehead crinkled in confusion.“I don’t—”

“Your Grace!My Lady!”

Tyrion’s voice broke her through her thoughts as he came closer to them.“It is so good to see you well,” he said, addressing Daenerys.

“And you,” she replied.“Everyone else?”

“I’m sorry to tell you that Varys is dead, Your Grace,” Tyrion said gravely.“I’ve had no word of your commanders from the field, but Missandei lives.She is over there with the woman, Gilly.”

Sansa followed Tyrion’s motions to a corner of the courtyard near the store rooms.Daenerys’s faithful translator was holding Gilly upright as Samwell Tarly knelt in front of her, his hands shaking.Jon was standing behind his friend, a helpless expression on his face.Daenerys wordlessly pushed past Sansa and Tyrion and marched toward the others.

After a long silence, Tyrion said, “They’ve begun digging out the tunnel.We haven’t found her yet.”

Sansa clenched her teeth as she drew in a breath.“Arya will be found when she wants to be found.She’s always been that way.”

“Help!Please, someone help!”

The cries for help were almost so familiar now that Sansa didn’t even look up.She was glad that she did, however, when she saw the owner of the voice.It was the young man Arya had so nonchalantly told her she lay with before the battle-Gendry, she thought his name was.He was clearly injured from the limp in his steps and he struggled under the burden on his shoulders.He wasn’t calling for help for himself.He was calling for Ser Davos.

* * *

Davos’s breaths had become fewer and more ragged as they stumbled through the north gate.Suddenly, the weight on his shoulders increased as Davos went limp and he stumbled and fell to his knees.

“Don’t you dare die, you old goat!”

“I’ve lived to a ripe old age, lad.”

“Then you can live a bit longer.”

“Ser Davos.” 

It was Lord Tyrion speaking as he approached them with Lady Sansa close behind, a concerned look on her noble features.

Davos reached up and grasped Tyrion’s hand.“A just woman, and an honorable man, remember?”

“I remember,” Tyrion replied, patting the older man’s arm.“I’ll do my best.”

Davos coughed up blood and Gendry felt tears stinging his eyes as the man met his gaze.“You’re a better man than your father and your uncles combined.Remember that.”

The old man’s body shuddered and a chill passed through Gendry’s bones.For an eternity it seemed all he could hear was the crackling of fires and the crunching of snow.

“Gendry?”

It was Lady Sansa speaking as she knelt next to him.He didn’t even think she knew his name.

“Gendry, are you all right?” Sansa repeated with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

He looked up into Sansa’s blue eyes and vaguely wondered how this woman was Arya’s sister.He couldn’t form an answer to her question, so he asked the only one on his mind, “Where is Arya?”

Sansa opened her mouth to answer, but her breath choked in her throat.

“They dead rose in the crypts,” Tyrion answered, gently laying Ser Davos’s head on the ground.“She fought them and allowed us to escape.”

Anger boiled deep within him. Another Lannister cunt was alive and well, and she was no where to be seen.“Where is she?” he demanded of the Imp.

Tyrion narrowed his gaze and almost smiled as he tilted his head, looking Gendry in the eye.“Oh, I should have seen it sooner,” he mused, “especially the way you swung the hammer that day in King’s Landing.”

He couldn’t bear the smug expression on the small man’s face any longer and he grabbed Tyrion’s cloak and pulled him closer.He ignored how Sansa’s hands were suddenly on his own in an attempt to keep him from committing any violence toward the other man.

“You think you’re so clever?Just tell me where she is!”

Tyrion was not bothered by Gendry’s threats in the slightest and looked the younger man straight in the eye.“The ceiling caved in on the crypt.She was behind it, not under it.”

Gendry let go and Sansa did as well.He pushed himself to his feet, groaning past the pain in his leg.

“Where are you going?” Sansa asked, following him now.

“To the crypt,” he replied without stopping or turning to face her.

“You can’t.You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.”

“She won’t thank you for bleeding to death on her account,” Sansa called after him.“You know her better than I probably do now.She won’t appreciate you dying needlessly after last night on account of her.As a matter of fact, she’ll haunt you through all seven hells.You know she will.”

Gendry stopped and looked at her.She was the very image of every high born girl he’d every seen: clean, straight, and beautiful.He had not seen the similarities between the Lady of Winterfell and her firebrand of a sister until that very moment.They were both stubborn as mules.

“Fine,” Gendry said through gritted teeth as he changed directions.

She was still following him as he entered the forge.He only had to pull on the bellows once to stoke the fire.Someone had wisely kept them burning throughout the battle.He placed a hot poker beneath the coals and waited for the fire to do its work.

“What are you doing?” Sansa asked him in a tone he knew all too well.It was a tone that intimated he was an idiot without actually saying it out loud.

“You said I was bleeding,” Gendry began, ripping the hole in his trousers wide enough that he could see the gash on the front of his thigh was still seeping blood.Without drawing out the imminent anguish, he pulled the poker from the coals a pressed the molten metal to his leg.He couldn’t help the guttural cry that escaped from his throat, but he held the poker to his leg until the steam stopped rising and then he dropped it to the ground.

Sansa was staring at him with a horrified expression, but to her credit, she hadn’t swooned as girls both high and low would have done in her position.“Why would you do that to yourself?”

Gendry pushed away from the wall he had been using to support himself.“Well, now I’m not going to bleed to death,” he said, limping out of the forge and back toward the crypt.

“The things we do for love,” Tyrion’s voice called out from where he had appeared a few feet behind Sansa.

Gendry didn’t even spare him a glare before continuing on his way.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the mildest Avengers: Endgame SPOILER ever  
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> Still with me? Cool. I expected Endgame to wreck me more than it actually did. I sincerely doubt D & D will be so kind here in a couple of hours. However, while everyone has been laying odds on who is going to die tonight, I think there's a good possibility that a good portion of our characters might make it through, but Winterfell will be utterly destroyed. Although that's clearly not the take I wanted to write about. 
> 
> I've been writing this all week, hoping to be at a stopping point before today. I am not, but here's what I've got anyway. There might be more. There might not. Who knows with me?


End file.
